Exploring the Service Experience of Cultural Tourist in Craft-based Cultural Tourism: Perspective from Co-Creation Tourism Experience

Abstract

Demand for more participative and interactive experiences has become more and more important in tourism because what tourism providers really intend to sell to their customers are those ‘experiences’. However, the criticism of serial reproduction in tourism experience has been criticized. The concept of co-creation is now widely and variously adopted by tourism scholars in the idea of tourism experience, though in fact there is few co-creation empirical research. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the co-creation tourism experience in the service experience of cultural tourist for cultural tourism from both the organization and customer perspective in traditional craft industry by proposing the propositions and conceptual framework which are conducted through empirical case studies.

A qualitative approach enables this study to gain deeper insight into how tourism experience and co-creation are connected to each other, and how a better connection could help improve the customer experience in the experience gap. As for the case studies, Shoyeido Incense and Marumasu-Nishimuraya are chosen as examples for this study. Both of them provide cultural tourism experience, and they are well known for their long history and hospitality in customer service. Data collection involved in-depth interviews as well as participant observation: service providers are interviewed for entrepreneurial behavior, and cultural tourists are interviewed for participation activities.

The study aims to provide a strategy guideline for the service provider of traditional craft industry to develop the co-creation tourism experience. The idea of co-creation tourism experience is related to not only the influencers among physical, social and organizational provided by the service provider, but also cultural tourist’s physical and mental reaction while interacting with the surroundings. Moreover, the understanding of co-creation should include the analysis of the interaction between these two aspects. After analyzing the case study, the study finds out that (1) hospitality and passion of the front staff, (2) cultural authenticity, (3) innovative thinking of the entrepreneur and (4) the user-friendly design on the tangible and intangible service could enhance the overall co-creation tourism experience and result in a memorable service experience on the craft-based cultural tourism.